The ‘public domain calculator’ demonstrator project will develop a tool to help establish legal status of cultural works – in particular helping users to determine whether or not they have passed out of copyright and into the public domain. You can watch a video about the partnership here (in French, with English translation coming soon).

We often say that a work has “fallen” into the public domain, as though it falls into a state of disuse, abandonment or oblivion. In fact, precisely the opposite is true. When a work enters the public domain, it experiences a rebirth. And I want to show that my department recognises this. Therefore, to support our thinking in this area, we have formed a partnership with Open Knowledge Foundation France to develop a prototype of a French public domain calculator using a set of cultural metadata (in this case a selection of metadata about works from the Great War) provided by the National Library of France.

French Minister for Culture and Communication Aurélie Filippetti announcing the partnership between the ministry and Open Knowledge Foundation France.

There were also talks from the Rijksmuseum and the British Library about what they are doing to publish and encourage the reuse of open data and open digital copies of public domain works.

Overall the day made clear that the Digital Policy Department at the French ministry of Culture and Communication, under the leadership of Camille Domange, have taken the decision to put the digital commons high up on their agenda.

It is very encouraging to see such strong government recognition of the value of the public domain as an indispensable public good. We applaud France’s leadership in this area, and hope this will inspire other countries to do more to enable the digital public domain to flourish and to take steps to support its reuse for the benefit of citizens – whether for education, creativity, or enjoyment.